Apple Homeview - who's it for?

[TheDeuce]

Just caught up on launch details of this kit.

I'm a long time Google home user. I have about 50 lights and other devices/appliances hooked up and controlled by Google.

But the apple system won't work with any devices which aren't matter compatible, anyone already invested in home automation can't easily jump ship, even if they happen to be an apple fan. It would be easy enough for me to transition to Alexa, but costly to do so to apple homeview.

So what about the Apple fans that don't yet have home automation hardware? There must be some such willing customers, but surely anyone wanting to invest in home automation would have done so during the last decade+ even if it wasn't an apple system.

And as it's apple, it's a tightly controlled infrastructure, so I gather no third party apps for connecting non matter devices or advanced automation etc?

There's a couple of interesting features of the Homeview, but nothing I can see to justify the premium over Google/Alexa equivalents.


The only people I know that have home automation already actually do have apple phones. Probably because the vast majority of even apple loyal fans already had Amazon in their lives for prime and shopping, so they were easily convinced by offers on Alexa echo devices years ago.


I'm surprised Apple have tried to enter this market without solving the problem of existing hardware compatibity somehow. Also surprised that as a latecomer, they're entering at such a comparatively high price.

Lastly, all the AI is carried out on device, no cloud support. Sounds great for security, but Google are now pushing Gemini onto old/new nest/home devices, Gemini is vastly more capable that anything apple can run on device. Amazon Alexa is now mostly Claude under the bonnet.


This all seems a bit poorly judged, and hopelessly late.

[Suspicious_user]

I've no idea who it's aimed at.

We have home automation, but we use Home Assistant, so I can customise the dashboards.

Everything the Homeview does can be done from an iPad - why the need for a separate device? Seems like a waste of time to me?

[dxg]

If I'm understanding things right, you can run apps 'on' this device, but they're actually running on your iPhone and being projected to the screen ala CarPlay?

If so, you'd have to be deep into the Apple walled garden to even be able to use this thing to its fullest potential.

[FreyaG]

We are an entirely Apple house (phones,
iPads, HomePods, Apple TV, watches, Macs.

I have absolutely no idea why I’d want this.

[.:ian:.]

I suspect its designed to get Apple fan-bois into home automation and not make home automation fan-bois into Apple fan-bois.

But I love how they sell a wall mounted version, for the same price as the one with a stand, but the wall mount kit is not included.

[TheDeuce]

FreyaG said:

We are an entirely Apple house (phones,
iPads, HomePods, Apple TV, watches, Macs.

I have absolutely no idea why I d want this.

At it's core, it's a home automation hub, just like amazing Alexa at Google home hub. We have a google hub in just about every room, so we can control the house lights/kettle/heating/music and more by voice wherever we are in the home. It's more useful than it sounds if you're not into this stuff.

But what's interesting is that you would be their perfect customer as you do have all the other apple kit... But plainly you're not that bothered about home automation, because if you were, you'd have it already from another brand.

This is what I don't get. If you already home automation, you don't need the apple solution even if you're an apple fan. If you don't already have home automation, it's most likely because you don't want it, so you still don't need the apple solution.

This seems to be a tiny potential customer base for a giant like Apple to bother with

[TheDeuce]

dxg said:

If I'm understanding things right, you can run apps 'on' this device, but they're actually running on your iPhone and being projected to the screen ala CarPlay?

If so, you'd have to be deep into the Apple walled garden to even be able to use this thing to its fullest potential.

I'm pretty sure the apps run on the device itself, but that proximity to that device with your apple phone/tablet then unlocks your personal data and files etc. so you can say to the device 'add sugar to my shopping list', and it will be able to access the shopping list in your iPhone if it's in your pocket.

Which come to think of it is a bit of a weird USP, because it has no value whatsoever to anyone that doesn't have a household full of iPhone customers already.

I assume the Homeview device is generally useful and compatible with other phones, but probably missing some of the functionality they showed at the launch. I'm sure most non Apple users would assume it might not be compatible though, so probably won't consider it beyond that.

[megaphone]

I have switch in every room, I use them to turn on the lights. My kettle has a button on it. My heating has a controller/timer.

I'm into my tech, I work with tech, I have no idea what I would use any of this kit for. The last thing I would have is an internet connected device in my home sending my personal info back to Apple/Google/Amazon and the like.

[TheDeuce]

megaphone said:

I have switch in every room, I use them to turn on the lights. My kettle has a button on it. My heating has a controller/timer.

I'm into my tech, I work with tech, I have no idea what I would use any of this kit for. The last thing I would have is an internet connected device in my home sending my personal info back to Apple/Google/Amazon and the like.

You don't have a smartphone or any internet connected device at home at all...?

That doesn't sound like you're in to tech tbh.

[lord dubington]

Very suprised by these answers. The answer is clear from the ad.

It's aimed squarely at families, having personalised multiuseraccess to a static device.

The home stuff is secondary. It barely featured in the ad.

Purpose is to sell more apple family one subscriptions, and to lock the kids into the apple eco system.

[TheDeuce]

lord dubington said:

Very suprised by these answers. The answer is clear from the ad.

It's aimed squarely at families, having personalised multiuseraccess to a static device.

The home stuff is secondary. It barely featured in the ad.

Purpose is to sell more apple family one subscriptions, and to lock the kids into the apple eco system.

I think that is generally understood.

The point is that such devices have been available to anyone that wants it (personalised multi user access) for over a decade now. From Amazon and Google, services that the most ardent Apple users also already mostly have accounts with.

That means the customer base for apple is only homes where everyone already has apple, but also that home has to suddenly want to spend £300 per room they may have use for such a device, despite never being interested in such a a device before.

That is the market, it doubtless exists but it's fairly limited I would have thought.

[lord dubington]

TheDeuce said:

That means the customer base for apple is only homes where everyone already has apple, but also that home has to suddenly want to spend £300 per room they may have use for such a device, despite never being interested in such a a device before.

Not quite, the ideal target customer is a family where the 'some' of the family uses apple, and the rest don't. And the point is to bring the others into Apple. £300 is quite agressive pricing for apple. Cheaper than the original screenless homepod. Cos for every dad with an iphone who buys this, the odds of the kids and wife coming into apple just doubled or tripled.

And I disagree that there is no interest. There is pent up demand for this. Our Homepod in many ways is much worse than our alexa spot, but we still have homepods because they work better with apple services. Apple isn't really a 'hardware' company, not fully. An apple one sub (which includes music, storage etc for whole family) doesn't cost much more than a single sub.

Apple is not trying to convert pure google household users here. Many decisins that seem odd to Google users (eg no cross platform reminders) make more sense when you consider the ecosystem lockin strategy

Edited by lord dubington on Wednesday 14th October 09:54

[megaphone]

TheDeuce said:

megaphone said:

I have switch in every room, I use them to turn on the lights. My kettle has a button on it. My heating has a controller/timer.

I'm into my tech, I work with tech, I have no idea what I would use any of this kit for. The last thing I would have is an internet connected device in my home sending my personal info back to Apple/Google/Amazon and the like.

You don't have a smartphone or any internet connected device at home at all...?

That doesn't sound like you're in to tech tbh.

Our iPhones are locked down as much as they can be, mine lives in my home office when I'm not using it. We I have no other 'smart' devices, I use a fire stick but that is switched off when not in use and is isolated from the rest of my network. CCTV, gate opening etc is also on an isolated network.

I would never have an 'always on' device, connected to the internet, with microphones and cameras in my home.

Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 14th October 10:04

[FreyaG]

TheDeuce said:

At it's core, it's a home automation hub, just like amazing Alexa at Google home hub. We have a google hub in just about every room, so we can control the house lights/kettle/heating/music and more by voice wherever we are in the home. It's more useful than it sounds if you're not into this stuff.

But what's interesting is that you would be their perfect customer as you do have all the other apple kit... But plainly you're not that bothered about home automation, because if you were, you'd have it already from another brand.

This is what I don't get. If you already home automation, you don't need the apple solution even if you're an apple fan. If you don't already have home automation, it's most likely because you don't want it, so you still don't need the apple solution.

This seems to be a tiny potential customer base for a giant like Apple to bother with

We have some (cameras, lighting, smart plugs) but because of the lack of HomeKit support for some or it we went with bits that are used via Alexa/Amazon devices. They all work, so undoing all of that for an Apple solution would just be a PITA. They're also selling it for things like FaceTime but then you're limited to one spot whereas with a phone or iPad you can move it wherever.

Agreed on the customer base. It's a strange choice of market.

[TheDeuce]

megaphone said:

TheDeuce said:

megaphone said:

I have switch in every room, I use them to turn on the lights. My kettle has a button on it. My heating has a controller/timer.

I'm into my tech, I work with tech, I have no idea what I would use any of this kit for. The last thing I would have is an internet connected device in my home sending my personal info back to Apple/Google/Amazon and the like.

You don't have a smartphone or any internet connected device at home at all...?

That doesn't sound like you're in to tech tbh.

Our iPhones are locked down as much as they can be, mine lives in my home office when I'm not using it. We I have no other 'smart' devices, I use a fire stick but that is switched off when not in use and is isolated from the rest of my network. CCTV, gate opening etc is also on an isolated network.

I would never have an 'always on' device, connected to the internet, with microphones and cameras in my home.

Edited by megaphone on Wednesday 14th October 10:04

Does everyone else in the house lock their phone away whenever it's not needed? That sounds like a significant inconvenience tbh.

As does never being able to have a car that's newer than one manufacturered two years ago.

I don't think net connected devices with the capacity to observe to some extent is avoidable anymore, not in a practical sense. There's also the question of how irrelevant such observations are in the vast majority of cases. IE: if you're not baking crystal meth at home, the powers that be probably have zero interest.

[ajprice]

Swing and a miss.

[TheDeuce]

lord dubington said:

TheDeuce said:

That means the customer base for apple is only homes where everyone already has apple, but also that home has to suddenly want to spend £300 per room they may have use for such a device, despite never being interested in such a a device before.

Not quite, the ideal target customer is a family where the 'some' of the family uses apple, and the rest don't. And the point is to bring the others into Apple. £300 is quite agressive pricing for apple. Cheaper than the original screenless homepod. Cos for every dad with an iphone who buys this, the odds of the kids and wife coming into apple just doubled or tripled.

And I disagree that there is no interest. There is pent up demand for this. Our Homepod in many ways is much worse than our alexa spot, but we still have homepods because they work better with apple services. Apple isn't really a 'hardware' company, not fully. An apple one sub (which includes music, storage etc for whole family) doesn't cost much more than a single sub.

Apple is not trying to convert pure google household users here. Many decisins that seem odd to Google users (eg no cross platform reminders) make more sense when you consider the ecosystem lockin strategy

Edited by lord dubington on Wednesday 14th October 09:54

I understand what's in it for Apple and the value of their self contained ecosystem to 'lock people in'.

But I don't see the draw/benefit for most end users, on this occasion.

I think if a family was interested in one of these but the kids had android phones/tablets, it's more likely the kids would say "but we want to use it too, why can't we have Alexa like all our friends houses". The alternative from the parents POV is to say no, we're sticking Apple - you won't be able use this until Christmas, at which point we'll buy you new apple devices"...

Of course, it will play out that way in some cases. My hang up is that I can't see it appealing enough, to enough people, for it to justify this very late entry into the market. This is not a new product, its a product that others have supplied for over a decade and their solutions already work with all the current and future personal and IoT devices already in the home.

Whatever Apple might want to happen, the following is not a great way to break into a new market segment:

- Limited backwards compatibility with already owned hardware
- Ten years+ late to market
- High price tag
- Doesn't work with personal devices already owned outside the Apple ecosystem

Apple can direct people's behaviour and future purchasing, and the price tags involved, when they are innovating and delivering something people have to have. It doesn't work nearly so well when the people already have the thing Apple are trying to re-sell to them, and the Apple one costs more and carries more limitations.

[Timbo_S2]

Saw this, and was immendiatetly interested.

Family all have apple phones, so would suit the family hub experience. Was about to pre-order, and watched some more content. Dissapointed it woun't work with my Sonos or Ring cameras, as that would have been handy - I suspect support may happen in the future.

So not i'm abit on the fence. Suspect i'll cave in at some point, but for the time being i'll wait & see. Its a product looking for a solution for me...

[RizzoTheRat]

TheDeuce said:

At it's core, it's a home automation hub, just like amazing Alexa at Google home hub. We have a google hub in just about every room, so we can control the house lights/kettle/heating/music and more by voice wherever we are in the home. It's more useful than it sounds if you're not into this stuff.

But what's interesting is that you would be their perfect customer as you do have all the other apple kit... But plainly you're not that bothered about home automation, because if you were, you'd have it already from another brand.

This is what I don't get. If you already home automation, you don't need the apple solution even if you're an apple fan. If you don't already have home automation, it's most likely because you don't want it, so you still don't need the apple solution.

This seems to be a tiny potential customer base for a giant like Apple to bother with

Surely there must be new people getting in to home automation all the time, if the people who are already in to it were the only ones it would die out in less than a generation. Matter is supposed to be the next big thing, Ikea have already moved all thier products over to Matter rather than Zigbee so they certainly think there's a market for new people too

megaphone said:

I have switch in every room, I use them to turn on the lights. My kettle has a button on it. My heating has a controller/timer.

I'm into my tech, I work with tech, I have no idea what I would use any of this kit for. The last thing I would have is an internet connected device in my home sending my personal info back to Apple/Google/Amazon and the like.

So you already have some smart tech, a device that can control the temperature of your house by the time of day. You've maybe even got a smarter one that can take the day of the week in to account too. Presumably you find that functionality useful? Would you not consider it useful to also be able to control different rooms independently? How about not heating up the house as much if you're not at home?

I also have a light switch in each room, but have a wife who doesn't seem to know how to use them, so the ability to turn lights off remotely is really useful. Plus having the store room light turn off automatically when the door closes has started to train her to close doors too. The ability to trigger the extractor fans by humidity is great rather than having to walk down 2 lights of stairs to turn the fans on before walking back up 2 flights of stairs to have a shower. There are all sorts of little things in life that aren't essential but just make life that little bit nicer.

[megaphone]

RizzoTheRat said:

So you already have some smart tech, a device that can control the temperature of your house by the time of day. You've maybe even got a smarter one that can take the day of the week in to account too. Presumably you find that functionality useful? Would you not consider it useful to also be able to control different rooms independently? How about not heating up the house as much if you're not at home?

I also have a light switch in each room, but have a wife who doesn't seem to know how to use them, so the ability to turn lights off remotely is really useful. Plus having the store room light turn off automatically when the door closes has started to train her to close doors too. The ability to trigger the extractor fans by humidity is great rather than having to walk down 2 lights of stairs to turn the fans on before walking back up 2 flights of stairs to have a shower. There are all sorts of little things in life that aren't essential but just make life that little bit nicer.

Fortunately my other half has a brain.